Jaekle Has It All -- Except Money

Stratford Republican Robert G. Jaekle hopes to raise $1.5 million in his effort to unseat Democrat Christopher J. Dodd as U.S. senator from Connecticut.

That's a tall order: Underdogs challenging long-term incumbents have difficulty raising money. The major sources -- special interests, mostly -- tend to see political campaigns as investments, and they're shrewd investors.

Campaign contributions mean access to officeholders, a chance to plead one's case for or against pending legislation. Given a choice between a blue-chip incumbent who's likely to be re-elected, and a penny-stock challenger whose chances are speculative at best, wise investors usually put their money on the incumbent.

Dodd by last June had already amassed a campaign fund of more than $1 million. When his next report is filed at the end of the month, he may already have surpassed Jaekle's yearlong goal -- with more obviously to come.

Jaekle, if he wins the GOP nomination, will be David, facing Goliath with nothing more than a slingshot. That may seem an encouraging metaphor. David, after all, slew the giant. But that biblical feat will be hard to duplicate.

Jaekle is an attractive candidate. In contrast to the bachelor Dodd, he's a family man, whose wife and four young children were with him at his formal announcement -- sometimes almost upstaging Daddy. He has the rare gift among politicians of a genuine sense of humor, often directed at himself in an engagingly self-deprecating way.

Self-deprecation isn't a quality voters are accustomed to. Some may find his easy style un-senatorial -- although others may find it a welcome change from high-powered oratory.

Jaekle is a lawyer whose public service has left him little time to practice law. By the standards of most legislators, he's poor.

He has one clear advantage in a year when many voters are unhappy with all officeholders: He's not an incumbent. He stepped

down from the state House of Representatives in 1990 to be John G. Rowland's running mate. That still doesn't make his a household name, though. Running mates don't get much attention.

Among politicians, he is both known and liked. In 1985 and again in 1990 Connecticut magazine polled legislators about their colleagues. Both times, Jaekle was rated the best in the General Assembly.

That means, among other things, that he has a lot of chits to call in as he seeks the nomination. He served as assistant minority leader, majority leader and then minority leader. He helped a lot of Republicans seek and win state office, and helped them advance their legislative causes.

His only announced opponent for the GOP nomination is state Rep. Christopher B. Burnham of Stamford, a good but relatively inexperienced legislator whose main claim to fame is having served as a Marine reservist in Operation Desert Storm.

That could be a plus for Burnham. Dodd, along with most Democrats, voted to give economic sanctions more time to work before launching military action. But the euphoria of the Persian Gulf blitzkrieg victory has faded; Saddam Hussein is still in power. I don't think Dodd's vote on the war will be a major factor in most voters' decisions.

In any case, Jaekle says he would have voted for war, as Burnham would have. That policy issue won't make much difference in the nomination contest. Nor will the income tax; both oppose it. That's not a congressional issue, but it may help the Republican nominee this year.

Jaekle has foresworn a statewide primary. If he's not the choice of the state convention, he'll retire from the field -- and he tacitly invites Burnham to make the same pledge. A GOP contest in August might give the winner wider name recognition, but would cost money that Jaekle thinks would be better spent against Dodd in the fall.

There it is again: money.

What Jaekle needs more than anything else to make this year's Senate election a real contest is a $1.5 million slingshot.